


Until the Storm Passes

by thequietone8



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 23:38:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7734229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequietone8/pseuds/thequietone8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"'Pidge? Why are you up?'</p><p>'So I'm... Uh... Scared of thunderstorms?' Yeah let's go with that..."</p><p>More like Shiro gets woken up by frequent thunderstorms on the planet Allura hides the castle on. Pidge tries to help him (and succeeds!).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until the Storm Passes

**Author's Note:**

> My obsessiveness has become so unbearable it has pushed me to the point of writing fanfic, and it is great. This is my first; hope you like it! Inspired by this cute fan art: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Until-the-Storm-Passes-621105681

Booming thunder shook the castle as Shiro woke from his light, restless sleep with a panicked yell, bumping his head against the wall in the process. Allura and Coran had landed the ship on a cloud-covered planet to hide from the Galra for a few days while the castle's defenses were repaired. In the meantime, the whole gang would be dealing with persistent thunderstorms, ones that unfortunately set Shiro very on edge.

Ever the pragmatist, Shiro regained his bearings as he glanced around to find that he was in the safety of his darkened room. Once he realized that there was no threat, he focused on taking deep breaths to slow down his rapid heart rate and rid his body of the adrenaline still telling him to spring to action.

On the other side of the wall, Pidge was lying awake in bed. She'd spent another late night working in the lab, and an unsolved technical problem was still running through her brain. Her focus was disturbed not by the bone-rattling thunder (she had quickly gotten used to it), but by Shiro's cry and the sound of something hitting the wall across the room. 

_ Oh, the thunder must have frightened Shiro out of his sleep... _ Pidge thought with a sinking feeling in her heart. She had heard Shiro scream himself awake several times, woken by nightmares that were triggered by what the other Paladins could only label as PTSD from his year as a prisoner of the Galra. She could only imagine that the thunderstorms were only making them worse. Unfortunately, anyone's efforts to comfort him in the middle of the night were declined with a polite, "Thanks, but I'm okay now. Go get some sleep." No doubt the same thing would happen tonight. 

But she couldn't let him sit alone with that haunted look in his eyes again. It was only their first night on this planet. Though they had gone through the day just fine, it was ten times scarier at night, when the darkness left lots of room for a wandering mind. She had to go in there and help, just like Matt had always done for her back on Earth.

How, though? Pidge was no Shiro. There was an 11-year gap between them -- 11 years in age, size, wisdom. Shiro was the kind, protective older brother in this relationship, and Pidge was the frazzled little sister.  _ Okay... So be the frazzled little sister then, _ Pidge thought to herself. Shiro had comforted her whenever she was scared from the day they met. She could find something to pretend to be scared of now, too.

Pidge crawled out from under her blankets and tiptoed out of her room to Shiro's door a few steps to her left, though there was no need since the clap of thunder that shook the castle covered her footsteps. She quietly tapped on the door after the rumbling passed and whispered, "Shiro?"

A few seconds later the sliding door hissed open. Shiro was revealed rubbing the side of his head with his cybernetic arm. He looked fairly calm now, but Pidge could still see a bit of that dark, haunted look in his eyes that he got whenever he had a flashback.

Shiro looked down to find his youngest teammate standing in the chilly hallway, half of her body bathed in the light blue light from the crystal panels.

"Pidge?" He forced all thoughts of his nightmare out of his head to focus on his wide-eyed friend. "Why are you up?"

Pidge sheepishly looked down at her bare feet and ran her hand through her messy hair as she said, "So I'm... Uh... Scared of thunderstorms?"  _ Yeah, let's go with that... _ She hoped Shiro would dismiss the uptick at the end of her sentence as well as all the loopholes he could undoubtedly find in her argument. "I mean, I know I was fine for the whole day today, but it's just so  _ quiet _ now and the thunder just seems to echo through the whole castle and those hollow spaces in your chest you usually never notice and --"

"Yeah, I get that feeling, too," Shiro interrupted her rambling with a small, sympathetic smile. "Why don't you stay with me until this storm passes?" He put his arm around Pidge's shoulders and guided her into his darkened room.

_ Well, that worked out, _ Pidge gleefully thought with a sneaky smirk. She situated herself next to Shiro on his bed as he wrapped a blanket around the both of them.  _ Now what?... _

Her question was quickly answered when she was taken into Shiro's arms as more thunder rattled the room. Even though she was not the one in distress, there was still something incredibly comforting about Shiro's embrace. Pidge instinctively wrapped her arms around Shiro and rested her head in the nook of his neck as Shiro rested his cheek on the top of her head. 

A few ticks later an especially loud clap of thunder pierced through the air as if the castle walls were nonexistent. Shiro involuntarily gasped as another image from his nightmares reappeared in his mind, but he quickly pushed it away and tried to mask his reaction by tightening his embrace around Pidge. Pidge, however, had caught it and tightened her hold to give Shiro the comfort she knew he needed. 

They sat there for around half an Earth hour until the unpleasant flashbacks faded with the passing storm and the knot of fear in his stomach unraveled with Pidge’s calm presence. Shiro's mind drifted into a peaceful, semi-conscious state. Pidge, hearing his breathing slowing and evening out, broke through the silence with a soft, "Shiro?" 

After feeling more than hearing his grunt of a response against her head, she said, "Shiro, please don't be afraid to ask me or anyone else for help. I know you’re like the stoic one out of all of us and like to stay strong for us, but you've been through a lot. We just want to be there for you, too."

When he didn't respond, Pidge mentally shrugged and thought,  _ It's okay. I said what I wanted to say. _ Within a few moments, she had drifted off to sleep, too.

. . .

The next morning, Shiro awoke to find Pidge nestled in his arms, still passed out from having stayed up late in the lab. Memories of what had happened began to resurface when Pidge's words echoed in his mind.

_ We just want to be there for you, too... _

Shiro frowned as he went through the procession of events, analyzing everything Pidge had said with his now clear mind. His quick deduction made him start to chuckle as he realized he had been outsmarted by a teenager. Matt's little sister, but still a teenager. 

As Pidge began to stir, Shiro rubbed the top of her head as he had done with Matt during the Kerberos mission. "You little trickster," he affectionately muttered.

"Hmm?" Pidge sleepily looked up at Shiro. 

Her memories of last night flooded her brain as Shiro asked, "You're not really scared of thunderstorms, are you?"

Caught off guard, Pidge couldn't hide the guilt on her face once she realized from Shiro's sharp, accusing stare that he had figured out her plan. Her heart sank a little as she responded, "Oh... No, not really..." After a moment of silence, she stole a glance back at Shiro and asked, "You're not mad, are you?"

"Of course not," Shiro gathered Pidge into another hug. "How can I be mad at you for wanting to help... Thank you." A few ticks later, he added with a laugh, "Matt would be so proud of you, taking after him with his little shenanigans." 

"Well, I learn from the best," Pidge laughed with him. 

Shiro saw the bittersweet smile on Pidge's face and knew what she was thinking. "Hey, we'll find him. We'll find Matt and your dad. And then we can tell them all that you've done in space. They'll both be so proud." He felt Pidge nod against his shoulder and proceeded. "How about we get up and go eat breakfast. I'm sure you still have a lot to do to fix the castle defenses, not to mention training later today."

Knowing Pidge wouldn't want to move, Shiro untangled both of them from the warmth the blankets and shifted off the bed, setting Pidge on the floor. She frowned as her bare feet hit the cold floor, but it quickly turned into a bright smile once she remembered the progress she had made on the improvements to the castle's systems. "Oh, you've got to see everything we did to the systems. After all the modifications Hunk and I made, they should be ten times stronger! Ugh, but there's this one issue we couldn't solve and it was bugging me all night... Maybe Hunk's figured it out... I've got to go ask!" Pidge eagerly bolted out of the room and back into her own, any bitterness at having to be in the relative cold having completely faded. Shiro fondly looked after her, then promptly got up to change and start a new day.

. . .

It had been a long day of successful improvements to the castle's defenses, fairly successful training (excluding Keith and Lance's constant bickering, of course), and successful hiding from the Galra. Though he was tired, Shiro just couldn't bring himself to try to fall asleep with another thunderstorm rolling in (and Pidge's words still hanging in the air). Knowing she was probably still in the lab, he decided to go check on her.

“Hey, Pidge,” Shiro greeted as he entered the green lion’s hangar. “It’s getting late. You should probably go to bed soon,” he advised as he climbed up the lion to join his teammate on the head.

“Yeah, I know. I’m almost done here.”

The two sat with the constant clacking from Pidge’s keyboard filling the silence until the thunder of a new storm echoed in the cavernous hangar. Out of the corner of her eye, Pidge saw Shiro tense at the sound. She looked up from her work to put a hand on his shoulder, just as he always did for her.

“Are you gonna be okay tonight?” Pidge asked softly, Shiro’s answer already in the back of her mind.

Shiro offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile, though Pidge by now could register the hints of uncertainty as he said, “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” 

Pidge stared up at him with a dissatisfied frown before saving her work and sliding off her lion’s head. Shiro followed close behind, confused when she said, “I have something to show you.” She replaced the laptop in her hand with Shiro’s wrist as she nearly dragged him down the labyrinth of hallways. 

Their journey finally ended at the common room. where the circular couch had been pushed against the walls. Lance, Keith, Allura, and Coran had already made themselves comfortable on the mattresses and blankets sprawled across the middle of the room. They looked up to greet the two new arrivals with wide smiles and a chorus of hello’s before returning to their conversations.

"Pidge. What's this?" Shiro looked around the now dimly-lit room, then down at his youngest teammate.

"Well, after you saw through my plan last night, I knew you probably wouldn’t say anything if you had another nightmare… So I talked to everyone today and we agreed that we'd all sleep in here while we're on this planet. Like a giant, multi-day sleepover! So you wouldn't have to be alone." Pidge spoke softly so no one would but Shiro could hear her. She looked up at him with hesitant but hopeful eyes, trying to gauge his reaction.

Shiro stood there speechless for a moment, a warmth spreading in his chest before a wide smile followed. Her concern deeply touched his heart. "Thank you, Pidge," he whispered, pulling her into a tender embrace.

Moments later the two were startled by someone yelling across the room, “Hey! You can’t be at a sleepover and leave over half the people out of a cuddle party!” Shiro and Pidge turned their heads just in time to find Hunk and Lance wrapping their arms around their leader and their former classmate. Soon enough, all seven of them had collapsed into a massive pile on the floor.

They sat entangled in sweet silence for a while before deciding to finally move onto the mattresses Coran had graciously moved from the castle’s spare bedrooms. Lance, Hunk, and Pidge spontaneously decided to build a fort, expertly crafting one in what they declared to be a record time (they’d made plenty during illegal sleepovers at the Garrison, even though Pidge wasn’t always present). The seven of them huddled inside and chatted for a while until fatigue and the purr of distant thunder coaxed them into a night of peaceful slumbers.

**Author's Note:**

> I made a Tumblr recently: thequietonetriestospeak :)


End file.
